Tuesday Aug 12, 2025
ESSAY August 2025 - The Prayer of Divine Remembrance - Ephraim, Oklahoma, USA
ESSAY Magazine (An International Journal of Sexaholics Anonymous)
The mission of ESSAY is to serve as a source of information, experience, strength and hope to sexaholics, both inside and outside the rooms of Sexaholics Anonymous. Our vision is to provide a high-quality “meeting in print” that gathers together members from around the world. It can serve as a portable “extra meeting” especially for loners and for members who don’t have access to many meetings. In addition, Essay serves as an outreach tool to carry the message to those who have not yet found SA. We strive to include a mix of stories and shares from a wide variety of members, including men and women, prisoners, and international members. In addition, ESSAY provides Fellowship announcements and information on subjects such as new meetings, Fellowship events, and our service structure. We hope that all of the articles we publish will offer useful information and provide experience, strength, and hope to all who suffer from the disease of sexaholism. Fellowship actvities such as international conventions, regional events and local events appear in the Calendar section. Each issue has a theme and various sections to share sexaholic stories and practical tools. In addition to letters and group news, ESSAY offers short, edited articles written by members about recovery and our solution. The Practical Recovery Tools section features members sharing on the topic, “Exactly how I did it.” Submissions may also include meditations, poetry, and humor. ESSAY is guided by the principles of the Twelve Steps, Twelve Traditions and Twelve Concepts. Each issue contains the following statement:
Listen on:
Episodes
Episodes
Tuesday Aug 12, 2025
Tuesday Aug 12, 2025
Recovery radically changed how he celebrates Father’s Day.
I used to think Father’s Day was about waiting for my children to shower me with drawings, or words that would make me feel like a good father. I thought it was a day to sit back and receive—to be told that all my sacrifices were noticed, my sleepless nights appreciated, my worrying understood.
But something has shifted in me.
Tuesday Aug 12, 2025
Tuesday Aug 12, 2025
This period of being single has given him time to work a rigorous program.
For most of my life, I’ve been looking for someone to connect with me and make me whole. I felt “inadequate, unworthy, alone, and afraid” (SA 203), always comparing my insides to the outsides of others. I was terrified of people seeing me for fear that they’d reject me—which was why I never learned to date. It felt too risky.
I began acting out when I was 12 and entered SA when I was 22, so I spent at least a decade lost inside myself. I didn’t realize that lust was really my problem; it felt more like my solution. In reality, it was stunting my ability to grow up emotionally, relationally, and spiritually. I couldn’t feel my feelings and thus couldn’t relate to those around me.
Tuesday Aug 12, 2025
Tuesday Aug 12, 2025
Sobriety has helped him deal with the highs and lows of being single.
I am single. I am not always happy, joyous, and free. It can be lonely. Divorce is painful. I don’t feel happy, joyous, and free.
Today, I am 18 months sober—miraculous proof that God can do for me what I couldn’t do for myself. I have also been depressed for about a month. I have been officially single for about half the time I’ve been sober. My wife moved out the same day I went on a bender, two weeks before I went to rehab, which is also two weeks before my current sobriety date.
Tuesday Aug 12, 2025
Tuesday Aug 12, 2025
Learning how to surrender and open up to healthy activities affirmed that he belonged.
My name is Ryan, and I am a child of my Higher Power. As a former SA sponsor once
humorously suggested, “You qualify to be in the program, you are one of us!”
I came to SA in 2017, but after a while, it became clear that I needed to leave the Program. I needed to find a genuine and authentic spirituality—a relationship with a merciful and loving Higher Power. Another reason I left is that I found the meetings I attended too serious! There was no joy, no humor, no levity. It didn’t seem to correspond to my understanding of healthy and life-giving emotional sobriety, so I left.
Tuesday Aug 12, 2025
Tuesday Aug 12, 2025
Having had a spiritual experience has allowed her to accept the plans God has for her personal life.
Sitting in the counselor’s office in early 2020, I voiced my biggest fear: that one day my sexual behavior would destroy a marriage.
Fetish-oriented fantasy, masturbation, literature, and pornography had been a part of my life for as long as I could remember, for no apparent external reason. I managed to curb the habit during a one-year relationship in my senior year of college. The moment the relationship ended, however, my compulsive behavior and thinking were back with a vengeance.
Tuesday Aug 12, 2025
Tuesday Aug 12, 2025
Good service leadership at all levels is indispensable for our future functioning and safety.
I began service in SA to practice leadership based on the principles and values I am learning from our 12-Step program and to learn a new sober way of life and functioning in the world. SA service means I am too focused on helping sexaholics find the Program and affirming them in their recovery.
Tuesday Aug 12, 2025
Tuesday Aug 12, 2025
Hearing others share from their weakness helped him realize he was not alone.
Hi, I’m Justin, I’m a grateful recovering sexaholic. I came to SA in 2019 when a priest friend introduced me to the Fellowship. I had just started a new job and it was summertime. He invited me to a meeting, gave me the SA White Book, and encouraged me to attend. At that first meeting, I heard other men share openly about their struggles—not just with masturbation and pornography, but with lust itself. I immediately felt connected. For the first time, I realized I wasn’t alone. I had just graduated from college and was single, and hearing others share so honestly gave me a real sense of hope.
Tuesday Aug 12, 2025
Tuesday Aug 12, 2025
This period in his life has given him time to grow.
Hi, I’m James D., and I’ve been incarcerated since January 28, 2022. I’ve been sexually sober since November 29, 2023—one year, ten months, and one day from the worst day of my life. That day, I experienced the first of many of the best days of my life: the day I entered sobriety.